Luc Pattyn - Professional Profile

Summary

I am an engineer with a background in electronics, software and mathematics.

I develop technical software, both for embedded systems and for desktop equipment. This includes operating systems, communication software, local networks, image processing, machine control, automation, etc.

I have been using all kinds of microcontrollers and microprocessors (Intel 4004/8080/8051/80386/Pentium, Motorola 680x/680x0/ColdFire/PowerPC, Microchip PIC, Altera NIOS, and many more), lots of programming languages (all relevant assemblers, Fortran, Basic, C, Java, C#, and many more), and different operating systems (both proprietary and commercial).

For desktop applications and general development tools I have been using both UNIX systems and Mac/MacOS for many years, but I have switched to x86-based PCs with Windows, Visual Studio and the .NET Framework several years ago.

I specialize in:
- cross-platform development (making software that runs on diverse hardware/OS combinations)
- instruction set simulation
- improving software performance, i.e. making sure the software runs the job at hand in as short a time as possible on the given hardware. This entails algorithm selection, implementation design, accurate measurements, code optimisation, and sometimes implementing virtual machines, applying SIMD technology (such as MMX/SSE), and more.

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The programming forums are very well organized; they are the result of years of experience, feedback, and improvement. Now CP plans to replace all of them by the QA subsystem, which focuses entirely on looks, and not at all on user comfort. Here is a selection of issues:

1.
others can modify text that I have published and signed my name to. IMO this is unacceptable; the only concession I am willing to make is when someone with a significantly higher reputation adds to and/or strikes through my text (without deletions nor changes), and such additions/strikeouts are marked in a different color and mention name and datetime in loco; and I then would prefer to have an opportunity to amend my text to include the new material (with proper acknowledgment) or remove it when I don't agree. The choice is clear, either it is my text with my name under it; or it is something else. If it is to be a wiki, then it should be anonymous.

2.
page efficiency is gone; a forum shows 25 messages by default. With an average of 5 messages per thread, this means 5 threads are available, within a single page. If you want to read them all in QA, it takes more than 5 pages (1 per thread, and a fraction of the list page). So you wait much longer to get it all, you get the ads every time, you have to click and wait, and you loose the overview. And yes I have DSL (and my mobile PC hasn't).

3.
visual memory no longer works; on forums, within those 25 messages, you see the names, the scores, the modifications to the subject lines, etc all at once. In the QA list page, you don't see who has answered, what votes the answers got, etc. So you end up reloading and reading the same thread because you don't recognize it in the list page.

4.
The so called "WYSIWYG" editor stinks
for one, it is not a WYSIWYG editor, as it still needs a preview mode to show how it really looks (with proper page width, syntax coloring, ...)
[ADDED 27-NOV] there have been several remarks/complaints in the forums; and now it got removed, and replaced by the good old message editor on 27-NOV-2009 [/ADDED]

5.
SIGs are gone. no SIG, no fun.

6.
cross-post problem (a minor issue: someone asking the same question in more than one forum) replaced by reread problem (a major issue: how to read messages with a specific tag (e.g. C#), later read messages with another tag (e.g. databases) without getting a lot of messages more than once?)

7.
repost problem (a minor issue: someone asking the same question in the same forum, just starting a new thread to get higher up on the first page) not solved; some kinds of edits (on the question or on an answer) are sufficient to bump the message.

8.
The guidelines have been shortened, most of the valuable content is gone.
item 3 ("Keep the question as brief as possible. If you have to include code, include the smallest snippet of code you can.") is completely wrong, it stimulates people to withhold essential information.

9.
I don't understand the function of the question, answers, and threaded discussion parts, and so do lots of other users. How can one react to an answer? ask additional questions? It is a mess.
[ADDED 30-NOV] Here is a simple example[^] of a poster adding an answer because he wants to ask something about a reply he has got.[/ADDED]

10.
Lots of bugs and minor issues; I trust those will be ironed out eventually.

PS: no need to react here, I will remove all replies; if you want some of this discussed, move it to the appropriate forum (probably the QA forum).

Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines][My Articles]I only read code that is properly indented, and rendered in a non-proportional font; hint: use PRE tags in forum messages

Have you ever seen Stack Overflow? Currently it kicks CP's ass. If people rank answers well, then all the bullshit answers and other irrelevant posts will drop below the radar. QA has much more potential than forums.

Stack overflow does have thread availability but the QA format leaves a lot to be desired. Also all the cruft is fine on a discussion like CP, it gives more flavour to see what kind of person is asking/answering questions, and the division of forums is great on CP.

It would be nice to have some sort of MERGEIT function to merge crosspost threads, so when one is spotted, don't remove it, just combine the threads into one, but appearing in both places. Or maybe allow cross posting explicitly, by tagging your question to appear in multiple forums. A question may be equally relevant to .NET Framework, C#, Web Developmnent and General Database, with the best answer coming from a mixture of problem domains. Common problem, I have a web app in C# making a SQL call. Which forum?

I would suggest a hybrid. Keep the forums for the actual discussions but have some mechanism for promoting an answered question (minus the cruft) into some sort of QA repository with tagging for quick querying.

I agree that QA is flawed in so many ways... concept, usability, implementation... you name it. Saying that, I find it also extremely enjoying to help people there (compared to e.g. editing on Wikipedia) and it's fun to report those little bugs from time to time. Btw I "secretly" use the Humor tag for the most enjoyable oddities I can find.

This was started as an effort to summarize my doubts about the viability of Q&A, as separate parts of it got discussed early on. By no means it is complete; however I'm afraid most of the original 10 points are still very valid today.

Yes, I read what people answer to my messages, here as well as elsewhere; and I don't want this blog to become a Q&A discussion forum that grows without limits, so I included the warning that things would disappear. From time to time, I clean up and adapt/extend my summary view.

Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines][Why QA sucks][My Articles]I only read formatted code with indentation, so please use PRE tags for code snippets.I'm not participating in frackin' Q&A, so if you want my opinion, ask away in a real forum (or on my profile page).

others can modify text that I have published and signed my name to. IMO this is
unacceptable

Is this still unacceptable?

What if we made it so that for members with Bronze (or no) Authority, questions are able to be edited. For members Silver and above there could be a preference setting (both in your profile and in the "post a question" page that allowed you to decide whether to allow others to fix up any mistakes. Obviously if questions (and answers) were editable then versioning would have to be introduced.

Having changes marked in a different colour is fine when comparing versions, but needlessly distracting for a member simply looking to read and answer questions. They don't care who edited what - they just want the question to be as well-phrased as possible.

In Q&A and forums I don't want others to modify my texts as that may well end up misrepresenting what I intended to say; and it would make me wonder why they changed things. So if selectable, I would switch it off for sure. And if not selectable, I would not even bother to participate, unless, maybe, under an alias if I were badly needing an answer to some problem.

I don't even like your editors touching my articles, I'd much prefer they teach me the rules of the site, and/or the English grammar rules I violated, or whatever applies, so I can fix it myself, learn from it, and avoid repeating the mistake. As is, all I can do is search for the changes and guess why they got applied, which takes longer and doesn't tell me much.

And everywhere, I might not even agree with the changes; in the end things would go back and forth till someone gave up. (I probably would not waste the time at all, and would prefer to have it all removed).

Things would be different for orphaned material. If an author has disappeared for quite a while, or does not react at all, then I would not mind someone with sufficient authority taking charge, provided such were represented quite clearly, as in "article by DEF (who took over the original work by ABC on some date)".

So is that a yes to "For members Silver and above there could be a preference setting (both in your profile and in the "post a question" page that allowed you to decide whether to allow others to fix up any mistakes"?

While I'd love to live in a utopia where all questions are prefectly phrased and formatted, and any mistakes can be quietly pointed out, knowing they will be fixed immediately by the author, that isn't reality. New posters, lazy posters, and posters who are not great at English, formatting, spelling, layout or just plain phrasing make it hard for others to help them, so allowing those who have the time and patience to help improve their questions is a valuable service.